Booking A Trip
by gemsofformenos
Summary: Azula was on her flight deeper into the forests of the Forgetful Valley, when she got tackled by Sokka. Now both are lost in the valley, until they meet a... talking raven? And an intimidating woman, who talks about important... paperwork and a booked partner trip?


**Hello everybody. **

**I always wanted to try to write a bit humor and here it is. This one is written for the wonderful PurplePlatypusBear21 to cheer her up and give her some support as I thought she could need it.**

**Never forget, you are wonderful just the way you are!**

* * *

**Booking A Trip**

Azula kept running through the forest, ignoring the twigs and branches, which were scratching her face and grabbing and tugging at her robe. Hot tears were still floating her eyes and she tried best to shield her face during her flight deeper and deeper into the forests of the Forgetful Valley and so she missed the sneaky root on the ground and tipped over it, stumbling sidewards against a tree. The Princess bounced back of it with a painful huff as another body tackled her down. She felt a firm grip around her middle, while she was rolling with another person over the wet soil. She lanced a hard elbow punch against the ribcage of the person and recognized a painful grunt. Her opponent loosened the grip for a moment and Azula took the chance and freed herself out of the arms of her attacker. She got one arm and twisted it on the back of the person, pinning her opponent down on the ground with her knee between the shoulder blades and a burning flame near the face of the persecutor.

"Outch, Outch, Outch. Okay, you won, I give up!"

Azula stopped her hand of burning the face of her enemy and took a closer look down on the person. Sokka was laying flat on his belly, perfectly pinned down by Azula and stared with widened eyes at her blue flame, which was dangerously close to his face.

"How could you dare, peasant!"

Her anger and surprise pushed the choking sadness aside, which had driven her into the forest. She twisted his arm even further up his back, which elicited Sokka more painful whimpers.

"Answer me, why did you followed me?"

"Because I was worried you might get lost here and I was worried you might hurt yourself and because you're Zuko's sister and because… OUTCH!"

Sokka kept stammering answers, still facing Azula's flame, until a painful twist of his arm stopped him. Azula shared looks with her flame and Sokka's face, before she leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Liar! You went after me to catch me and to throw me back into this miserable place I came from."

Sokka's brain was only focused on the threatening flame, so his mouth was faster than he wished it would be.

"It may have been an option, but..."

He cursed himself and his loose tongue as Azula's flame grew higher and hotter and he prepared himself for a flaming death as he squeezed his eyes shut, but suddenly the heat and the pressure disappeared. Sokka opened his eyes carefully and recognized Azula standing a few steps aside, rubbing her back and elbows and cleaning her robe from wet leafs and dirt.

"Get lost peasant and leave me alone."

Sokka blinked confused at Azula, who had turned her back to him, still tugging at her robe. He dared to sit up carefully.

"You won't burn me to a crisp?"

He could swear, that he had heard a faint sarcastic snicker.

"Not if you leave now."

Sokka didn't move and kept staring at her. It forced Azula to turn back to him, facing his questioning look with an annoyed face.

"But if you prefer the crispy decision, you might stay with me, of cause."

Sokka snapped out of his look and was about to stand up, when his face turned into a slight worried one. He started to look carefully around, frowning deeper and deeper with every turn of his head. Azula crossed her arms before her chest and started to drum with her fingers of her right hand on her left arm.

"My patiences is running low, peasant."

Sokka stood up, finally and started to scratch the back of his head a bit ashamed. His cheeks got a fine shade of red, as well as his ears.

"Just one last question, Azula. Do you know since when this mist is getting thicker and do you have a clue from which direction we came from?"

The Princess sighed annoyed and was about to point at a certain direction, but she froze in motion and frowned as well. She turned to another direction, but also hesitated. A thick and cold mist was floating through the trees and crawling and curling on the ground. It covered the tracks and took away any sort of orientation. Sokka's voice was trembling and filled with worries and an audible hint of fear.

"So you have also no clue, don't you?"

Azula felt her anger rising up again. She considered the option to burn this stupid peasant right here and now and she heard his anxious 'Azula?' as blue flames started to leak out of her fists, but she only released an most annoyed groan. What a fitting end for a terrible day. Lost with the greatest idiot she could think of. She turned back to him and her eyes burned wholes in his skull.

"Piss me off and I use you as a signal flare for your friends, peasant."

This would probably become torture for her and Sokka's stupid grin combined with the heavy nod didn't help to ease this suspicion.

* * *

Death was wandering through the halls in his house and was checking the hourglasses on the shelves. Business had been as usual today, but it was his duty to give the long shelves a check from time to time, yet this phrase didn't catch it correctly. There was always time to check them. Suddenly he stopped at a shelf. Death tended his head aside, observing a fresh fee space on the board, big enough for two glasses. He might have frowned as well, but found the idea was too ridiculous to give it a real try. He touched the free space with his bony fingers.

"INTERESTING…!"

* * *

Sokka's chin was dropped down to his chest and his face was painted with boredom. He was following Azula since hours now and the mist had only got thicker. They were hopelessly lost in the forest, but more important he was getting tired and hungry.

And bored.

He had tried twice to make small talk and had lost a bit of his wolf tail at his second try, which had finally shut his mouth for a while, but now he was reaching his limits. Eventually he couldn't stand it anymore and he released a loud groan, which forced Azula to stop. She turned back to him piercing his bored look with dangerously glowing eyes.

"What is it now, peasant?"

Her annoyed voice forced another groan out of Sokka's mouth and he stated to wave his arms in sulky motions.

"Come on Azula, even with your stubbornness you have to admit, that it is pointless to keep on walking. We have no idea where we are, we have no orientation and most important, I'm hungry and more walking means more hunger, so let us rest here and wait until the mist will fade."

Azula was about to protest again, but finally she sighed in defeat and walked over to a tree to sit down. She was about to do so as a croaking voice made her light a flame to threat the newcomer.

"Well I think I can help in this case."

Also Sokka took an alarmed position, searching in the mist for the source of the voice. Suddenly both recognized a movement and Azula threw a fireball at it, but it was only an angry croaking raven, who flapped aside and took place on a brunch above them. They wanted to keep searching for the unseen person, who had talked to them as the raven started to speak again.

"Be careful girl, you could seriously hurt someone with it."

Azula's and Sokka's jaw dropped. Both stared in total disbelief at the raven. The creature started to check its feathers.

"What? Is something not in place? Damn and I have checked them twice before I started to search you."

"You… You…"

Azula tried twice to form the sentence, but failed. She shared a brief look with Sokka to assure, that he was seeing and hearing the raven too. It wasn't a hallucination, or st least it was a shared one. Sokka pointed with his finger at the raven.

"You can talk!"

The raven stopped checking its feathers and faced the baffled looks.

"Of cause I can. Quoth, at your service. At least until the paperwork is done. You cannot leave here before we have done the paperwork."

Azula and Sokka shared looks with each other.

"You also see and hear a talking raven, Sokka?"

The Water Tribe's man nodded a bit, observing the creature out of the corner of his eyes.

"So I'm not going insane?"

Sokka shook his head at Azula's question.

"Not more than usual, Princess… HEY!"

A fireball passed his head and for a moment he could see the warning look of Azula again.

"Wait, wait. No killing until the paperwork is done. Susan must be here any moment."

Both snapped out of their quarrel and faced the raven with a questioning look.

"Who is Susan? Is she another raven?"

Azula seemed to have found some of her old confident or at least some of her abilities to set up a Pai Sho face, because her voice sounded curious, but there still was a little edge in it. The raven started to shape his beak at the branch, but suddenly a young woman appeared behind a tree. It seemed that she was simply stepping out of the mist. Azula lighted a new flame on her palm instantly, but the woman didn't seem to take notice of it. She simply started to open a briefcase and took out two scrolls.

"I'm Susan. Susan Sto Helit to be precise."

She introduced herself like everything necessary was said with her name and she simply presented Azula and Sokka a scroll.

"Please sign these contracts, so you can proceed your journey."

Both stared at her and the paper with a total lack of understanding.

"What for Agni's sake is going on here. What kind of weird play is this?"

Azula tried to intimidate the woman, who had addressed herself as Susan, but something in her eyes started to send cold shivers down Azula's spine. It was like watching at the sharp edge of a blade, which seem to think about the pros and cons to cut your throat or not. Finally Susan sighed and placed one scroll in Azula's hand.

"No play, these are only the official papers for your stay here in our world."

The intimidating woman sighed again, as she recognized the growing confusion. She turned to Quoth and the raven landed on her shoulder.

"Don't blame me, that most people decide to make such trips unprepared and your grandfather cannot visit them to explain it, you know that and I get only payed for searching not for the rest. By the way you owe me two eyeballs."

"Wait, wait, wait! What trip, what's about these papers and why..."

Sokka had finally got his breath back. He was still staring at the woman and the raven, like they would be a purple platypus bear, but he instantly stopped talking at the soul-piercing look of Susan. He wouldn't admit it, because he was also afraid of Azula's reaction, but he decided that her look could be even more terrifying. A moment passed, before Sosan sighed again.

"A trip into another reality. Lots of people do this every day and like you two most of them have no clue how much efforts and paperwork this means."

She pointed at the scrolls.

"Both of you must confirm the guidelines first, before you can leave this place here. Don't worry, this is no big deal. You only accept, that my grandfather is allowed to collect your souls in case you die here and all the other usual stuff, which goes along, when you switch into another universe."

She handed Sokka his scroll too and turned around. Susan was about to go, when Azula's fireball hit her back or more precise didn't hit her back, it seemed to the Firebender that it simply passed through her without harming the woman, but the cold anger in the woman's eyes made Azula wince a bit back.

"I'll skip this rude behavior for now, but be careful. Next time it may have consequences."

The air seemed to get colder for a moment, but the staring contest got interrupted by Sokka again.

"Could you please explain us this mess. We were walking through a forest and then there was all this strange mist and now the talking raven, you and a contract about our souls… this is a bit much for one night."

A slight smirk came to her face. Susan turned to Quoth.

"I bet it was a strange forest."

The raven released a sound close to a chuckle.

"Or a cursed one, but in any case a mysterious one, no doubt."

Susan nodded.

"And there have been warnings to walk into it. There are always warnings, but no one listened."

She chuckled a bit and faced Sokka's almost begging look.

"Fine, here an explanation for the slow minds. You have booked a trip into another reality. This means some things will be different, than to your world you use to know and this affects your death too. My grandfather is the one, who collects the souls of the dead in this world, but you're from another one, so technically he isn't responsible, but just in case something unpleasant would happen to one of you, then someone has to be there, because this is your birthright, but your Death isn't responsible here..."

"Wait, so you said, that your grandfather is the Death?"

Sokka's jaw dropped again and even Azula stared in total disbelief at the woman. Susan smirked a little.

"Guess why he couldn't be here to give you the papers. He's a person you only meet once in life, beside you're a wizard, but that's another case."

She shared a poisoning sweet smile with Azula and pointed at the scrolls again.

"The rest is all to be found in the papers for you. Oh and be careful with calling for your gods here in this world. Gods tend to become real as soon as someone starts to believe strong enough at them and the old ones hate it, when someone new moves to the neighborhood."

She walked back into the mist and was nearly vanished, when she called at Sokka and Azula again.

"Oh here is a hint, because you're newbies at traveling universes. You have booked the partner trip, which means both of you will return home or none of you. And try to get a towel. I don't know why, but I've heard that a towel could become important when traveling."

Susan vanished before Azula or Sokka could ask further questions. Both opened their scrolls in their hands, each one with their names on it. A big headline in golden letters welcomed both:

_Welcome to the Discworld_


End file.
